--- [Alex’s perspective] A few days later

“I still can’t believe you managed to hijack our bet and turn it against me…” – Shin

“What was that? Did a measly F-rank hunter try to speak to me just now?” – Lett

“My god you’re insufferable… I’ll pay the bill, alright…” – Shin

Lett starts laughing.

Me and Shin split the bill, then get out of the restaurant.

“So, what are we doing now? We haven’t gone on a mission since returning from Dolor.” – Lett

“You can go on a mission by yourself, I have other plans.” – Shin

“Oh?” – Lett

“I’m not going to fail next year’s exam; no way. I’ll take a page from your book and learn SDM first. Luckily for me, I already know what my specialty is!” – Shin

“Oooh, good idea! I should do that too. But… I’ll need to go to the specialty finder first; I have no clue what mine is.” – Alex

“They say you need to be E-rank first, but you can easily get past that rule by just being reeeeeeeeeaaaaally annoying.” – Lett

“What did you even do? You never told us.” – Shin

“Weeell, I’d rather not talk about it to be honest… But! I’ll take you there if you want to!” – Lett

She’s making me really curious…

“I’ll stay; I already know what my specialty is.” – Shin

Lett bursts into laughter.

“What?” – Shin

She explains as she wipes away her tears of laughter.

“It’s not that easy… She can explain it a lot better than I can, so I’ll leave that to her, but just knowing what your specialty is, isn’t enough. She is both the specialty finder, and the person who will train you. Without her, you’re not going to be able to use your specialty in just a year.” – Lett

“…” – Shin

--- A few minutes later, we knock on the specialty finder’s door

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Who’s there?!” – Specialty finder

Lett opens the door and enters first.

“Oh my god… It’s you…” – Specialty finder

We enter right after her.

“What do you want?!” – Specialty finder

“I want you to train my friends, just like you trained me.” – Lett

“Aren’t those the rookies that tried to take the F-rank exam before getting a recommendation, then failed? Yeah, no. Not happening.” – Specialty finder

Lett walks up to her and leans forwards.

Her face is just a few centimeters away from hers.

She stares deeply into her eyes, and says:

“I’ll do it again…” – Lett

“FINE! Okay, okay. Fine…” – Specialty finder

What the hell did she do…?

“Perfect!” – Lett

She smiles and walks out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“See you later boys!” – Lett

“Soooooo, you’re the specialty finder, huh?” – Shin

“Just call me Gaia.” – Gaia

“Nice to meet you Gaia! I’m very thankful that you’re willing to teach us SDM even though we’re not E-rank yet. I just have one question…” – Alex

“Spit it out.” – Gaia

“What did Lett do?” – Alex

She looks annoyed just thinking about it.

“I’d rather not talk about it…” – Gaia

“I see…” – Alex

NOW I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT SHE DID EVEN MORE!!!

AAAGH!!

“I’ll teach you SDM, but before that, I need to make sure you understand how Divinity Manipulation actually works. First of all, do you know how BDM works?” – Gaia

“I mean, I think so, but I wouldn’t mind you explaining it again.” – Alex

“Alright. The way BDM works is by absorbing the Divinity in the space around you, then channeling it throughout your body. By channeling it through your skin, your skin hardens. By channeling it through your muscles, your muscles get more powerful. Whatever body part you channel it through is empowered.

However, it’s not easy to maintain this. It takes a lot of concentration. This is the reason why you need to train so hard to maintain it. A slight break in concentration and you’ll let go of the Divinity. The better you get at manipulating it, the bigger amounts of Divinity you’ll be able to manipulate without losing control.

Charged attacks are sometimes referred to as a window into your future. You take in as much Divinity as you possibly can, then mostly focus it on one part of your body. Like your fist for instance. You can’t move around while using a charged attack because you’re at the limit of your concentration. The reason why charged attacks are sometimes called a window into your future is because with enough training, you’ll eventually be able to control that much Divinity all the time. Obviously, that doesn’t mean you can’t use charged attacks anymore, it just means that what used to be a charged attack is now your default. Your new charged attacks will be even more powerful.

The last important thing about BDM is slowed aging. The reason why you even age at all is because when your dying cells divide, sometimes tiny errors will happen. Those errors build up over time, and lead to your body slowly breaking down. By constantly channeling Divinity through your entire body, each individual cell will be strengthened. This makes you age slower for two reasons.

The first reason is that your cells will live much longer. If it takes ten times as long before your cells have to divide and create new ones, then you will live for ten times longer.

The other reason is that your strengthened cells will be able to more accurately replicate themselves. If the chance for an error occurring is a tenth of what it usually is, then you will on average live ten times longer.

Combine both of those, and you will live for 100 times longer. Now the exact numbers will greatly vary based on how good you are at BDM. But even at your level, unless something unnatural happens to you, you’ll essentially live forever. As you may know, this is the main motivation for a lot of people to learn BDM.” – Gaia